Category: Thoughts

The cost of creation

Posted on by Ashlee Scheuerman in Other Writers, Thoughts, Writing

Natasha McNeely triggered a lengthy tangent in my mind; one I’ve been considering rather in-depth for a long time, and moreso in the last few days as I truly begin to weigh my options in publishing. Natasha talks about e-book prices, and her take on appropriate cost.

Firstly, you all get a disclaimer: this is just my thoughts, from a personally inexperienced perspective, yet with the backing of a whole lot of research and sense of pride in storytelling. There. Now, onto my rambling.

There’s nothing wrong with the $0.99 price point. There are valid reasons for using it, including drawing in new readers, and letting people get a relatively risk-free taste of your work. After all, isn’t it exceptionally easy to justify dropping a dollar on an e-book, just to see if you like the writer’s style? I know I’ve done it.

However, there is a catch. Many, in fact.

As I outlined to my husband when we were setting up his freelance illustrator rates, you need a wide scope for what the client, or consumer, is actually paying for. When you are an artist, whether through images or words, you have years of experience and learning behind you. The buyer is purchasing a quality product because you have a decade or more practice put into your craft. By asking for a fair price, you are giving value to the sheer amount of dedication necessary to perfect your art.

Then there are subtle overheads. The tools required to produce your product. A computer, with peripherals and software; a desk, pens, paper. Electricity, an internet connection, and a workspace. Even if you had all of these things before you started writing, using the home computer in your lounge room, they are still business costs. You could not offer an e-book without paying for those things at some point.

There are also literal costs in producing and marketing a finished e-book. You might get lucky and not have to pay for all of them, or you might go all-out and use most of the following (and more): cover art, editing, formatting, uploading/account fees, advertising including business cards or other little handouts like bookmarks (which require design and printing), a dedicated website, the list goes on.

After all that, the writing itself must have value. It must. You did not spend a year or longer writing this one specific book, to see no returns on your personal effort. Now, that’s not to say value is inherent in money (quite the opposite), but this is an important element to consider when offering your e-book for under a dollar.

I believe an e-book novella deserves to cost up to $5.00, with novel-length works going anything up to $15.00. I’ve been happy to pay $15.00 for an e-book I especially wanted, and will probably do so again. I also believe the lure of a cheap first book should come when you already have a backlog of work available; that way, readers can buy more of your writing while it’s still fresh in their mind. Will they remember to come back in a few months time, even if they liked their $0.99 purchase?

Just as a new author releasing a paperback will not sell their first book for less than its worth, as a book, as a complicated, dedicated creation, independent writers most certainly shouldn’t be expected to sell their e-books at a devaluing rate.

~A

To an owl kind of year

Posted on by Ashlee Scheuerman in Thoughts

Owls are awesome. I have written about them a couple of times, but it probably hasn’t really expressed how lovable I find these creatures.

One of my Christmas gifts this year was a free downloadable owl calendar from My Owl Barn. Add together my love of calendars and owls, and you get a pretty fantastic outcome! Even better is how wonderful the artwork is, and that this project is completely free to share with everyone.

So you, too, can enjoy a super excellent owl calendar for the year of 2012, click the image below to head over to My Owl Barn and download your own customised copy!

Owl Lover 2012 Calendar

Since there are so many amazing images to choose from, I’ll be going through the list and printing up a couple more of these for myself. You can never have too many owls, or calendars. True facts.

If you don’t hear much from me, it’s because I have lost my soul to Skyrim. We held out on buying a copy until Christmas in hopes of finishing a bunch of other projects before starting the latest Elderscrolls installment (it didn’t happen), and the game is already living up to expectations. Oh, sure, it isn’t my favourite game, and from a technical standpoint, I have a number of criticisms, but there is something to be said for charging around with fireballs and a battleaxe.

~A

Skip another Sunday

Posted on by Ashlee Scheuerman in Blogging, Thoughts

Isn’t it amazing how you can get an absurd amount of things done, yet still feel completely unaccomplished? Welcome to my week. I can’t even tell you what I did, I don’t remember most of the specifics! All I know is I’ve been very busy, lots has happened, and family have been thoroughly visited, though we haven’t wrapped up those activities just yet.

Somewhere in the last few days, I’m assured a Sunday occurred and I missed blogging. I doubt anyone else noticed any more than I did at the time, since we’re all being drawn away from the usual internetly duties. Christmas break, when will you be relaxing? As usual, I need time off from my holidays.

At least with the change of pace, I can’t really get bored. That’s not to say I’m ever especially without things to do; I might get bored every now and then, but I’ve always got a new project, or something exciting to research if nothing else! But there’s something to be said for being dragged into unusual activities and being less of a hermit than I am for the rest of the year. That may or may not be a good thing.

As much as I love cooking, I don’t normally spend nearly as much time as I’d like baking tasty treats, but Christmas brings out the best in cooking delights. You better believe I am chief taste-tester, too. Mmm. Then there’s always the double batches; some for gifts and sharing, some for home. The fridge is full of snacks. It is very delicious.

I also enjoy visiting with family and friends who don’t live locally. They all troop into the greater Perth area to see us and other extended family, and it’s just pleasant to catch up. Some of them are folks we won’t see again until next Christmas, so making the most of the time they’re in town is important!

And I’ve always loved wrapping gifts, and the excitement of seeing people open the presents and find their surprise inside! I’m sometimes a bit sneaky with wrapping; if I don’t want the recipient to guess what’s inside, I’ll often hide the present in a deceptive cover first. Towels, bubblewrap, and oversized boxes are only some of the “normal” ways I’ve disguised the real gift. There have been the odd occasions of cobbling together mismatched boxes to make a very odd shape, or using an interesting basket or even a small suitcase before Christmas wrapping is applied. Hey, I have to keep myself entertained.

Of course, on the subject of skipping blog days, blogging will also be cut back this week with Christmas day falling on Sunday! But don’t worry, I’ll still be around, even if my brain is too fried to remember to comment! After surviving the rest of this week, things should return to normal, somewhat.

~A

A time for responsibility

Posted on by Ashlee Scheuerman in Crafting, Thoughts, Writing

It’s one of those words, isn’t it? Responsibility? Even we who are well into adulthood and are already used to taking care of things tend to baulk at life’s requirements every now and then. Not least when we have conflicting responsibilities!

I’m probably going to miss my self-imposed deadline for finishing TDM by the end of the year. The sheer amount of things I have left to do in preparation for Christmas is certainly enough to keep me busy, and then there are always other obligations and vital activities to attend. Yesterday, I helped a relative move house. Today, I finished a number of Christmas gifts. Tomorrow, I need to do more. When will I fit in writing, or editing? When will my mind slow down enough to let me dedicate my thought to the deep processes necessary for critical editing?

I like Christmastime, but man, is it busy.

I’ve considered a daily schedule of sorts, to try and fit in all my projects, but I know how I am. If I’m on a roll, or making something specific, I prefer to finish what I’m doing before moving on, not just stop at a designated time and come back to it later. This is the same for all my work. I’m not very good at schedules, regardless of how flexible I make them.

Writing is usually relegated to the “lesser responsibility” pile, unfortunately. Grocery shopping is more important, cooking meals is more important, sleep is sometimes more important. Finishing Christmas gifts is getting more important, as I need to send a number of them overseas ASAP, then going to the post office to wait in line for half an hour will proceed to become more important than my editing time. And while I might be able to write snippets while standing in line, or in the car (as I’m always the passenger), I most certainly cannot edit in those garnered moments.

If nothing else, I will try and put aside an hour every day, whether it be first thing in the morning, or last thing at night, or any other time I can be reasonably assured of few interruptions, and actually stick to editing a little each day. I know how much progress you can truly make as long as you keep chipping at something daily. I’ve used that technique to great success before! So it’s just a matter of being responsible to myself and my passion, as well as everything else I’ve taken on. My story is definitely that important.

~A

How to have an excellent day

Posted on by Ashlee Scheuerman in Thoughts

Step one: Make snacks.

In this instance, I cooked up one of my staple foods, the ever-delicious tuna, avocado and cucumber sushi! Surprisingly, sushi is one of those foods which seems like a chore, but turns out to be ridiculously easy to make, tastes extra fresh and you can tweak it to your own subtle flavours so easily. To illustrate this point, here’s my “recipe” for sushi. Keep in mind, you will need some kind of bamboo rolling mat, or similar, to shape the sushi into the nice rolls.

1 cup of sushi rice
2 sheets of nori/seaweed
1 cup of water (I actually use a LITTLE over a cup)
1 tablespoon of sushi vinegar
1 small can of tuna, around 90grams (in olive oil, from preference)
1 tablespoon of mayonnaise (whole egg, again preference)
1 Lebanese cucumber (or part of a continental cucumber)
Half an avocado

Rinse the rice in a strainer/colander until the water runs clear. Put the rice into a medium pot with the cup of water, turn your stove on high until boiling; cover and reduce heat to the lowest setting/simmer for 10 minutes. After the 10 minutes is up, remove from heat and leave resting for a further 15 minutes. IMPORTANT: Do not lift the lid from your pot until after the full 25 minutes has elapsed! The steam that’s going on inside the pot is cooking your rice to perfection!

While the rice is cooking, drain the tuna and mix well with the mayonnaise. It will form a slightly sticky mixture and be very delicious. Slice your avocado, and cucumber into long strips; remove the seeds from the cucumber. Some people will scoop/scrap the seeds out with a spoon, but I simply cut the cucumber length-ways into quarters, then run the knife at an angle to cut away the seeds, then cut the cucumber to my desired thickness.

When the rice is all done, empty it out of the saucepan into a heavy bowl. I use a ceramic mixing bowl, but it would be traditional to use a specially shaped bamboo bowl; anything will do, really. Sprinkle the sushi vinegar over the rice, and using a bamboo or wooden spoon, turn the vinegar through using a folding and cutting motion. This keeps the rice grains from breaking up. You’ll want the rice to cool down; I usually just toss it into the fridge for a couple of minutes and fold it again, or use a hand-fan to cool while mixing.

The instructions for actually “building” the sushi roll are far better explained through image or instructional video. I won’t go into length about the hows of it, but simply put, nori, rice, fillings, roll! I set the whole sushi roll aside in the fridge (while I make the others, usually), because the nori softens and seals the roll when resting, and as the rice gets colder, it sticks together firmer and that makes it easier to cut.

I’m no expect on sushi, but my “technique” is quick, easy, and then I get to nom a whole pile of sushi. Which brings me to step two of having an excellent day!

Step two: Take snacks, visit friend, enjoy!

~A

The gift of humour

Posted on by Ashlee Scheuerman in Thoughts, Writing

I am super lucky to have some of the best friends anyone could hope for. They appreciate my sense of humour! Who would have thought that was possible! It swings from the wildly exaggerated, to completely dead-pan (though that’s hard to translate to text), and while I certainly amuse myself, I don’t usually consider myself a funny person.

The husband is outrageously proficient in humour, and expressing it through multiple mediums. He honestly makes me laugh every day. It makes for some very interesting conversations about my writing work, though. I will express an idea or a concern I have, and he will usually recommend disarming the entire situation with something humourous. I rarely take his advice, but if we ever co-author a book like we have discussed, it will definitely feel the presence of my comedian husband.

In the meantime, we’re working on other projects together. Youtube videos and comic strips are in their respective stages of planning. Though I can’t give too many details, we also have an independent video game in production with a programmer friend, and that has a significant dose of our joint humour. It’s usually a good sign that, after our brainstorming sessions and I’ve written up all our notes, we both still find it funny later (and our programmer also gets a good laugh!).

When I read through my writing, I often come across moments of character interaction that make me grin and chuckle. Some characters are intentionally humourous, while some just have flashes of wit. The interesting part is trying to give them diverse thoughts and behaviours, and making sure that carries through well. Making a character express a sense of humour which I don’t necessarily share becomes a very interesting experience.

The single way to find out if I’ve succeeded in these endevours is to share my work with others and receive feedback on those characters. There are certain things a person just can’t judge on their own, and the presentation of the varied types of humour is definitely one of them. While I may or may not be a funny person, some of my characters definitely need to be!

~A